Study Shows High Suicide Attempt Rate for Transgender Teens

A new study has confirmed that teenagers identifying as transgender attempt suicide at a significantly higher rate than teens in the general population.

The latest study on the intersection between transgenderism in teens and suicidality comes from survey data collected by Search Institute, a youth-focused non-profit organization based in Minneapolis. The survey included self-reported responses from 120,617 people between the ages of 11 and 19, beginning in June 2012 and ending in May 2015.

Study results indicated that slightly more than 14% of the teens surveyed reported having tried to kill themselves, which appears to be line with other research.

What is more alarming and therefore worth noting, however, is that over half of teens identifying as female-to-male transgender--50.8%--reported attempting suicide.

41.8% of young people identifying as neither male nor female, 29.9% of male-to-female transgender, and 27.9% of those who identify as “questioning” said they’d attempted suicide.

Just 17.6% of females identifying as females and 9.8% of males identifying as males said the same.

According to CNN:

“The sample included 202 teens (0.2%) who identified as male-to-female transgender, 175 (0.1%) who were female-to-male transgender and 344 (0.3%) not exclusively male or female transgender, also called nonbinary. About 0.9% of the surveyed teens (1,052) reported questioning or not being sure of their gender identity. Additionally, 50.6% (60,973) of females identified as female, and 48% (57,871) of males identified as male. (The researchers rounded up the percentages for publication.)”

Russell B. Toomey, lead author of the study and and associate professor of family studies and human development at the University of Arizona, believes that "research is critically needed" in order to further understand why suicide attempts are higher among transmasculine and non-binary adolescents.

But adjunct associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at The Ohio State University, Carl Tishler, suggested that the study's finding that there is a higher rate of attempted suicide among transgender youth, in general, "speaks to confusion."

"These are young people who are not clear who they are on the outside versus who they are on the inside," Tishler commented. "We, as professionals and parents and teachers and coaches, have to pay close attention to these young people."

Concern over the deteriorating mental state of teens identifying as transgender, and the role that progressive transgender ideology plays in affirming this phenomenon, continues to grow.

Ryan T. Anderson, a William E. Simon senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and founder and editor of Public Discourse, released his controversial yet important book earlier this year titled When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. Dr. Anderson notes that while “80 to 95 percent of children with gender dysphoria will come to identify with and embrace their bodily sex”, men and women who’ve undergone transition surgery are a staggering 19 times more likely to die by suicide.

“These statistics should stop us in our tracks,” said Anderson.

“For human beings to flourish,” he went on, “they need to feel comfortable in their own bodies, readily identify with their sex, and believe that they are who they actually are.”